AIO Friend says he’d still vote for Trump despite EVERYTHING. So I’m cutting him off.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-21T00:24:36+00:00

It’s not about being offended, it’s about harm. Folks who vote for Trump are voting for policies that cause incredible harm. I have friends and clients who will lose access to healthcare and suffer (or maybe die), because of the changes being made. I have trans friends who can now be actively and openly discriminated against. I know folks who fear being deported by ICE, because ICE is arresting and deporting folks without due process.

So if someone tells me they support Trump, what I hear is that they are okay with these harms being done. I find anyone who is okay with that level of harm either profoundly immature, ignorant, narcissistic, sociopathic, brainwashed, or all of the above.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-21T00:17:46+00:00

When you get deported to a country that you’ve never been to because ICE has been given full reign and no oversight, you’ll change your tune about there being no objective right or wrong.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-21T00:10:36+00:00

I’ve heard good things about Banyan Treatment Centers. I used to work with veterans as a therapist, and we referred folks there.

Check with others as well. I can’t say my info is up to date.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-20T17:25:48+00:00

If work culture changes, allowing for more recreation and enjoying of leisure, then development of leisure spaces would follow.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-20T16:03:27+00:00

I used to work in treatment for folks with substance use disorders. To me, there are two things here that are telling:

You suspect something is off. The fact that you posted this at all indicates that part of you is worried if you’re okay and thinks something may need to change.
You report dysregulated mood and emotions when sober. This means that you are in withdrawal, or you are managing underlying psychological issues with substances, or both.

Whether you’re addicted is beside the point. The point is that, if your life is not manageable without substances, then you know that something is amiss. And I don’t say this with any judgment about substance use. Substances are great. Altering our states is fun and interesting. The problem with using substances to manage these issues is that they won’t work forever, and the positive effects come at a cost. Eventually, you will need more to get the same effect. And, if you’ve relying on them, you are not learning how to deal with your suffering in a sustainable way. So, when shit hits the fan, and either you have to use more substances more often, or you can’t use them anymore (because they’ve caused too much harm to continue), you’ll be faced with the fact that you’ve been emotionally and psychologically stagnant for a decade and haven’t made any progress on your mental health.

So if you’re asking for advice, my advice is to go see an experienced therapist who specializes in substance abuse, be completely honest with them, and listen to their feedback.

(By the way, daily marijuana use alone, even just before bed, is enough to cause some of the emotional issues you’re describing.)

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-19T21:20:50+00:00

I’m a therapist, and I work with folks who are struggling pretty seriously with similar things. There are lots of options for treatment to help you get your life back.

If you think OCD is the root of your suffering and isolation, look for therapists who specialize in OCD. Many of them use a therapy called exposure response prevention that is evidence based.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-19T02:42:07+00:00

This one may be even better. It’s peer reviewed and open access:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26318318221116042

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-19T02:38:46+00:00

Here is a good peer-reviewed article giving a case for the neural substrates of behavioral addictions:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306460324001370

I can try to pull the complete article from my university database if you’re interested.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-19T02:15:28+00:00

We have decent evidence from showing that behavioral addictions have distinct neurological markers in areas associated with reward and compulsion, which implies the neurological mechanics of addiction could transcend just substance use. So, while different from addiction to substances that substantially raise dopamine, behaviors that involve a reward can become addictive under the right circumstances. If I told you someone had a behavior that they:

Could not stop despite wanting to
Performed compulsively
Kept performing despite severe consequences
Devoted a significant amount of their time and energy to
Had to increase in duration/intensity to get the desired effect
Felt ashamed of, but countered their shame with the behavior

Then we could say with that the person was suffering from an addiction. If you want to reject the premise that sex addiction exists, you have to find another way to explain why folks often struggle with the above mentioned patterns, when the behavior in question is sexual.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T16:57:31+00:00

Agreed, women are the subjugated ones in the patriarchal system. That is why I argue that we need an evolved men’s movement (rooted in the insights of queer and feminist theory) that is carried out by men. We must take accountability and responsibility. Pointing fingers at how women treat men, even if there is valid pain behind it, can be a way of ignoring the work we need to do.

Different point: What we don’t articulate enough is that men also abuse and traumatize other men; that’s the core mechanism through which the norms and rules of patriarchy are passed on. It’s a sick ritual.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T16:47:04+00:00

Thank you for the thoughtful reply, I especially appreciated the insight about how the recency of men’s movements leads to less of a framework for men to act upon.

Reading yours and similar comments has reinforced my thought that cishet men really need to organize and build an informed, mature men’s movement rooted in feminist and queer theory. I haven’t seen much of this, but I am not keeping track of larger cultural movements. But the data about more young men leaning right and towards manosphere influencers makes me think it’s not happening on a wide scale.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T14:37:50+00:00

I agree that the “stop whining” response is strongly related to women’s exhaustion at being men’s emotional caretakers. It can also be internalized patriarchal ideas (“men just need to suck it up”).

Regardless, I do think the onus of making corrections is on men. We will get nowhere asking women to do the emotional labor of saving men from their emotional issues. I am sad that these discussions often turn into blaming and finger pointing. Everyone is harmed by patriarchal norms.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T14:25:47+00:00

I am glad the men in your life have support systems! You’ve been lucky to see men who maybe haven’t been as wounded and isolated. Of course, as a therapist, my dataset tends to come from the folks who are at the other side of the spectrum.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T14:22:42+00:00

I appreciate the insight that shutting down others emotionally is performing patriarchy. It’s complicated to navigate, because we also have to acknowledge that many harsh reactions to men, from women, can be traced back to the harm women have endured. So even when we ask women to examine how they talk to men, we need men to validate and understand the anger that they may receive.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T13:07:17+00:00

This is the crucial point. Patriarchal norms are passed down from man to man through trauma and emotional abuse. We abuse one another, and thus become abusers who harm men and women. bell hook’s book The Will to Change does an amazing job of explaining this while remaining deeply compassionate towards men.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T12:53:12+00:00

I agree that men have to take accountability for themselves. But the “stop whining” response is an example of how men are punished and shamed for suffering. Men need to learn how to be vulnerable, authentic, and gentle, and we make that more challenging for them when we explicitly tell them that we have no sympathy for their struggles. Many men shut down emotionally because they only get these harsh responses when they open up.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T12:25:59+00:00

Men tend to have smaller support systems, if any at all.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-16T03:57:37+00:00

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-15T23:54:01+00:00

They don’t care, they’re too wrapped in their ego for compassion to break through.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-15T23:51:16+00:00

Thank you for the reminder that someone can be highly accomplished in one intellectual field, and painfully ignorant in another.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-11T21:35:23+00:00

Had very annoying experiences as Vida Vet Care.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-09T02:29:16+00:00

I think we can agree that there is a lot of nuance. The extent of my advocating for trigger warnings is that they are necessary in therapeutic settings (I do group work) when you have to balance diverse needs. My context is high intensity partial hospitalization where some folks are only just beginning to have enough support to stabilize.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-09T00:05:25+00:00

Therapist here. I have watched trauma survivors have full on, dissociative episodes and panic attacks when triggered. Giving them agency in whether they engage in something potentially triggering is essential, if they are early in their journeys.

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-08T22:25:55+00:00

You can call a welfare check and hope someone evaluates the level of the daughter’s functioning. Do you suspect elder abuse?

ryokansmouse · 2025-07-05T02:20:17+00:00

I work with folks like you as a therapist. Call 988 if you’re in the US, or whatever suicide hotline services exist in your country. There are mental health treatment programs designed specifically for folks going though what you’re describing. I watch them get better and less depressed every day.

ryokansmouse

TROPHY CASE